The present invention relates in general to cell site maintenance in a cellular telephone network, and, more specifically, to a computer-based tool for scheduling and monitoring of cell site maintenance to assist control center technicians in managing operation of the cellular network.
Communications equipment located at cell sites requires periodic maintenance as well as service visits to modify, upgrade, or repair equipment both on a planned and an emergency basis. Depending upon the specific maintenance activity, cell site operation may be disrupted (e.g., equipment power may be turned off or connections brought down).
Cellular network operation is continuously monitored by network managers at a control center. Full or partial outages and certain types of degraded performance conditions of a cell site are detected by the mobile switch connected to a particular cell site. The mobile switch then sends alarm messages to the control center via a private computer network provided for signaling and network control.
Some maintenance activities result in an alarm being sent by an associated switch to the control center. It is useful for the control center technicians to know whether an incoming alarm was precipitated by maintenance activity or whether it was triggered by a real equipment malfunction. Because of the potential disruption of cell site operation, network managers typically impose restrictions on the times and duration for which maintenance activities are allowed. For these and other reasons, the control center typically keeps a maintenance schedule that is required to be used by all field maintenance personnel.
By virtue of the maintenance schedule, the control center can ensure that time restrictions are followed and can distinguish an alarm caused by maintenance activity from one corresponding to an unattended malfunction. It is also useful for control center personnel to be able to determine recent and upcoming service calls to a cell site when an alarm occurs since that information may help identify a cause or help identify a field technician that can best assist in resolving the current issue.
After completion of a service call, a maintenance technician needs to update the schedule to reflect that the maintenance event is closed. In a large cellular network, there may often be several technicians wanting to interact with the control center simultaneously to create or update (i.e., close) maintenance events. Thus, the creation and maintenance of the schedule has been time consuming and inefficient for both the maintenance technicians and the control center. Furthermore, the schedule data has not been easily or widely accessible within the operations of the cellular network.